


The one where they're in space

by SunsetSwish



Series: ShHiatus Bingo Prompts (Team Red) [11]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, Pre Space Husbands, Pre-Relationship, half-alien Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 01:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetSwish/pseuds/SunsetSwish
Summary: "Hey, Frey." Alec addressed Clary twenty minutes past the five hour point. "I'm sorry I got you into this and that I will get you killed away from your boyfriend."Routine space exploration cut short by a disaster, a surprise visitor and a prelude to something bigger than any of them.SHHiatus Flash Bang Bingo (Team Red)Square: Space AU





	The one where they're in space

It came almost out of nowhere. Neither Alec nor Clary had the time to do anything more than cover their heads, as if injury to other parts of the body would be any better in the middle of _nothing_. They were outside of their shuttle, a small ship for small-scale research that they took to check out an asteroid floating in the eastern sector. They had full suits on, the newer models not requiring anchors to the ship and they were in the middle of performing their assigned tasks: Alec making a report on the asteroid since it hasn't been identified before, Clary running tests on its chemical contents.

The asteroid itself was a quite boring find, containing some minerals worth mining but overall of no importance. There were only two of them, Alec and Clary, because there was no need for more people flying out to investigate.

Because of all that the impact that literally shattered their ship, the _Arrow B_ , was a shock.

Destroyed engine released enough energy that they were both flung away at an angle, separated from each other more and more with every inch they flew. It was not the biggest problem. With propulsion unit attached to each suit, they were capable of moving as they wished.

No, the problem was that there was nowhere to return now. Their ship floated in pieces of debris, tatters of the protective coating, torn cables and the pierced oxygen reservoir which darted off into space as it emptied completely.

First few minutes after the disaster passed unproductively, Alec's mind blanking with total surprise of what just happened. It didn't matter that he was trained, it didn't matter how many repairs he was capable of performing on the ship on his own. There was no ship to fix. The white-and-silver coating of its remains stood in contrast to the nothingness of space behind it and to the dark, looming asteroid they had come to investigate three hours before.

"What _was_ that?" Clary asked him after she flew closer, joining him beside one of the biggest pieces. It looked to be the left wing, with the Lightwood name in blue barely recognizable on its edge.

"I'm not sure. Micro-meteors don't do that kind of damage." Anything bigger should have shown on their radar and given them sufficient warning. After a rescue team showed up they'd gather the remains of _Arrow B_  to investigate the cause.

Alec turned around, looking at Clary. She was even paler than normal, her eyes wide. They rarely saw eye to eye but just then Alec could understand her feelings completely.

"What now?" She asked again, the most obvious question that he was already asking himself.

"Well, the upside is we don't need to find working communications device in there to let the others know we need help. But we should look for it if we want to talk about any details."

It was true, the whole Lightwood fleet had built in fail-safes which triggered an alarm when communication broke with one of them or when their readings were coming in wrong.

There weren't many things worth saving on the ship. They had no samples stored inside and they didn't even have a chance to take anything from the asteroid yet. It was a good thing their colony could afford to replace the ship itself.

After several long minutes of pushing debris out of the way, maneuvering around, trying not to cut his suit, Alec got to their radio. A decent bit of the steering and control center was floating in one piece so he could actually use it to contact Isabelle.

His sister must have been waiting for a word from them ever since the automatic alarm activated back home because she answered immediately, worry clear in her voice.

_"Alec! Are you all right? Is Clary?"_

Her voice sounded off, like there was interference. If their radio was damaged it wouldn't have worked at all instead of distorting the voice so there must have been something between them.

"Yes, yes, we're fine." Alec answered her. "The ship is gone but we weren't in it."

_"Was it a meteor? You're not under attack, are you?"_

"No, there's no one else here. How soon can you come?"

_"About that…"_ Isabelle began. _"I'm sorry, but I only have more bad news for you."_

"What? What do you mean?"

_"Remember the Artifact we found and attributed to the Warlocks?"_

"The one they specifically told us not to touch?"

" _The same. Well, the Clave sent out some people who touched it. In fact, they fiddled with it until it actually started working."_

Alec was thoroughly confused. There were no Clave delegates when they left with Clary. There was no message informing them of their intent to come. He should have been there to see them.

Closing his eyes, he sighed.

"What _exactly_  is the bad news?"

_"We have no idea what the Artifact is doing and how to make it stop. We only know it's scrambling our navigation and any attempt to fly out of the colony ends up with automatic pilot taking the ship right back. Any kind of ship already outside gets pulled back in."_

Alec closed his eyes. Was this a coincidence? An unidentified object tearing through his ship and now rescue delayed? But neither he nor Clary were worthwhile targets for anyone? Their little ship even less so.

_"We have people working on it,"_ Isabelle attempted to reassure him, _"trying to override it and Jace got the idea to try and dust off one of our older models to see if it's affected as well. I'm sorry but it's going to take a while."_

They were three hours away from the colony, so Isabelle and the rest had only another three hours to fix this.

"We'll wait." Alec told her. 

What else could they do?

*

It's been five hours. The suits weren't designed to be the sole life support for their users for longer than six. No one had come to get them so far and Alec had no good news.

"Hey, Frey." Alec addressed Clary twenty minutes past the five hour point. She was trying to salvage a few electronic tools she found in a broken storage box. It was as good a way to pass the time as any.

"I'm sorry I got you into this _and_ that I will get you killed away from your boyfriend."

She turned to look at him. He couldn't quite read her face because she was a small distance away from him and the helmet's glass further obscured his view. "If you hate me being with your brother so much, why didn't you send me out with Izzy or take Jace with you if you wanted to go?"

"I didn't want to _separate_  you today." He replied. "I just wanted to get to know you without him around to keep your whole attention on him."

"Oh." She blinked. "Oh, well, thanks for the thought. Seriously. And you know, there are a lot of things you've done that have pissed me off in the past… but this mess, this is not on you."

She left her little project and used her propulsion unit to get down to where he was, shielded by two pieces of _Arrow's_  coating.

"Why did you even approve me for your team and projects?" Clary asked him when they were on the same level.

"You're the only one I know who made contact with the Angels."

"Like it's any use… Just because it happened once didn't bring anything new into my life." She shrugged in her suit. "It didn't do anything for the rest of us either."

She had thought, once, that it would repeat and that it was a beginning of something. It was disappointing to share the news with other people only to experience just more silence from the ancient, powerful race afterward.

Angels were named that way because of the manner in which they had appeared to humans back on the old Earth. They were beings of power, the waves emitted by their bodies were harmless to human bodies and visible to them as white and yellow light, surrounding silhouettes of the Angels. Their own speech would have been incomprehensible to humans so they used technology to translate, making them sound otherworldly. But the Angels have been gone for a long, long time. No one thought they died out but it was obvious they weren't interested in coming back to where humanity spread from the old Earth to other planets and then to nets of artificial colonies, such as the net named Idris and managed by the Clave.

"I don't expect them to be our friends suddenly." Alec continued the topic. "I thought it might be useful to have you just in case. Our team usually gets the long distance missions. And if Angels liked you enough to talk to you even once, then other species might be more inclined to play nicer too."

"Seriously?"

"Look, like I said, I don't hate you. And you're a decent person to work with. You need a lot of practical training but you're smart and you learn fast-"

"I'll make you a deal." She interrupted him.

"Huh?"

"When we get out of this, you're going to give me proper training, fast course, instead of telling me to go away every time. In return, me and Jace will be the best team you have, no unprofessional behavior in work environment."

"So I won't have to see you kissing in the medical bay anymore?"

"I promise." She grinned, to which he shook his head.

"Okay, sounds perfect to me. Now we only have to be saved."

 

If Alec had to look for a silver lining, it'd probably be that suffocating with CO2 was marginally better than being drowned or strangled. Too bad that silver lining surrounded their impending death.

He couldn't even really blame himself for this. It was a freak accident and not the first, nor last, in space history. People died in catastrophes all the time and it just happened to be them this time. He had considered the option of it being a deliberate attack but he didn't come up with plausible enough reason for it and since absolutely nothing happened after it…

Alec didn't know dying came with hallucinations, not that it was very surprising that he'd experience them. He was seeing _colors_  on the white pieces of their ruined ship. Blue shifting into purple, purple into pink. Then bright white, then blue again. He was seeing the same colors on the dark gray of his gloves and the rest of the suit in his line of sight.

His vision was swimming, getting dark at the edges and that, he knew, was prelude to losing consciousness. It was the sixth hour, passing by. He wasn't checking the time for accuracy anymore but he knew they've ran out of it.

A low buzzing grew more intense, both in his ears and the rest of his body while the colors also became more distinct and intense.

It didn't occur to him that those anomalies might have been coming from something. Something approaching from behind… something like a sleek, small spacecraft that emitted light as a side effect of using its various sensors.

Before he passed out, Alec heard Clary's voice but could not catch the meaning anymore.

*

It was a bit boring that afterlife should be this white _place_ , clean and bright. It smelled faintly of ozone or like the high-tech medical rooms they had back at the colony or in Alicante. The air temperature was just right, giving Alec no incentive to move.

"Hey." Clary spoke.

At that, he finally reacted. Since he was laying down on his back, he rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Clary sat on a medical bed next to his, her feet dangling from it freely. She wasn't wearing the suit anymore - or rather she wasn't wearing the top part. Her standard t-shirt was uncovered and the top part of the suit pooled around her hips on the table. There was a drinking container with a long straw in Clary's hand and she took a sip while Alec gathered his wits.

"How long have I been out?"

"Five minutes."

"Oh."

But… he looked at himself. Same as Clary, he was in his t-shirt and suit pants, including the boots. He couldn't see their helmets. As he looked for them, he took in the place they were in now. Obviously, in another ship. Obviously, in its medical bay. He couldn't recognize the owner just by the tech in sight. He'd know a Lightwood ship in a second and there were a few other fleets he was familiar with and this was none of those.

"So whose ship-"

"Is this? Mine." A male voice finished and answered for him. It came from a person who walked in from the right side of the room where sliding door was. The man was covered by a space suit complete with a helmet which covered the face inside completely with various protective filters. The suit's type, just as the tech, was unfamiliar to Alec.

The face in the helmet didn't stay secret for long because the man reached up to his neck, unsealed the helmet from the suit and took it off.

"You're a Warlock." Alec blurted immediately, surprised.

Golden, slitted eyes blinked slowly at him. 

"Are you aware that name came to be because of a mistranslation of a word between some old Earth nations?" The man asked him. 

"There isn't another name. Except for a scientific one in the old Latin system…"

"Yes, well, another one wasn't created because we _graciously_ accepted the name. It doesn't roll of the tongue as easily as I'd like but it does make an impression on everyone" He paused. "Like it just did on you when you saw me."

Alec narrowed his eyes. It really wouldn't do to get into disputes with the one who picked them up and hosted them in his own ship.

"The strange item!" Alec's thoughts caught up finally. "Did you come to finally get it? _After_  it caused us problems?"

"You mean," The Warlock said coming closer, "after you decided to stick your human fingers right in it and now you're crying you almost lost them? We've sent you a message that we _know_  you've received."

Alec deflated. "I was against it but that decision didn't depend on me anyway. Why did you let it drift unattended in the first place?"

"The same reason why you ended up drifting today, darling. The meteors. We call them Comets but they're not natural." He paused there as if for effect. "Or, more accurately, they are pieces of natural meteors, asteroids or planetoids that are used as testing tools."

"For what and by whom?"

"Are you familiar with the Edomai?"

"The race that used to war with the Angels over territory ages ago." Clary answered.

"Oh, they still fight. Those who you call Angels lured the Edomai away from our cosmic backyard when humans - and Warlocks - were still young. In fact, it wasn't long after Warlocks were created."

Alec and Clary took a moment to take that in and draw their own conclusions about where the Warlock was taking this conversation.

"Please don't tell me they're coming back." Alec said eventually. There were still scars on the various planets from war wounds made by the terrifying tech of Edomai and their drive to kill.

"I'm sorry." The other man replied, meaning it.

"That's why they spoke to me!"

Alec looked at Clary and so did the Warlock, silently questioning her meaning.

"I was contacted by one of the Angels. Telepathically."

The cat eyes widened more. Meanwhile Alec was starting to see the pieces come together. They all did. Now Alec believed there _was_  intent in their accident. Now that he knew it might have been _tests_  it didn't seem so strange that it happened to their insignificant ship.

The Warlock stood in silence, thinking, while his two human guests sat and waited.

Alec could almost see the thoughts crowding in the other man's head. He was feeling the same but the Warlock had more experience, more knowledge of the far Edge and who knew how old he was? He surely had more pieces to the puzzle than their whole colony.

"We can't sleep on this warning." The Warlock said at last, determination now coloring his voice. "It's as clear as it gets. How do you feel about going to the Spiral Labyrinth?"

Alec gaped at him and so did Clary. No one knew exactly if the Spiral Labyrinth was an advanced colony or an actual planet, information about it was so well guarded by the Warlocks. There have been human visitors there but they were people the Warlocks trusted in the first place so they never bragged about having seen the place.

"Are you serious?"

The Warlock grins. "I need to go back to consult this. If I like you enough by the time we get there, I might make the effort to have you allowed in with me."

Alec's brows drew together.

"This isn't our whole team. We'll only go together."

Clary agreed with him because while her eyes were shining just at the possibility of seeing Warlock cities, she was still thinking of Jace.

"That's fine," The Warlock waved his hand like it was no difference to him. "We'll make a stop at Idris anyway and if the rest of you are also as pretty, I'm sure we'll come to an agreement."

Alec resisted the urge to back off when the other man came close enough to touch. He held out his hand for Alec to take.

"Magnus Bane. At your service, if you're willing to return the favor."

*

Alec sat in the second pilot's chair, looking out the front glass of the Warlock's ship. They were making their way back to the colony and since neither Alec nor Clary wanted to stay in the medical, they followed Magnus on a short trip of the inside of his spacecraft. He explained purpose of various parts but never offered in-depth technical explanation. After they were done with that, Magnus invited Alec to the control center while leaving Clary in the lab, where the Warlock had showed them his collection of data about animals and plants they have never seen before. She'd make some copies for them to take home.

Magnus himself was sitting down nearby with one of his feet propped up on a part of his pilot's chair and with his elbow resting on his knee, his chin on his palm. He was watching Alec. It was unnerving because Alec wasn't _doing_  anything.

He was only looking around, taking in all the tools a Warlock pilot had for their use in here. The reason for Warlocks' reputation was their tech. Between their intelligence, longevity and determination, they've advanced far faster than humans despite having been made _from_  humans. And since they were essentially exiled ages ago, they were free to keep their discoveries and advancements to themselves as they built their own civilization away from human prejudices against those half-human, half-Edomai beings. That changed with time, of course, when new generations of humans grew up with Warlocks already exiting, not seeing them as an abomination but instead as just another race.

Alec noted the difference between the medical, the lab and this control room. It was full of color, lights and it had a _scent_ , something humans never bothered to maintain in aircraft or spacecraft. It was sweet and fruity but not heavy or nauseating. Alec liked it.

He almost startled when a container with a straw floated in front of his face. They weren't in zero gravity so he didn't understand how… until he saw a thin metal disk attached at the side of the fluid container.

The Warlock was telling it where to go with casual, light movement of his left hand which still had a glove on. Alec had thought that maybe there were other marks of his race on his body aside from his eyes and that was why the man kept the suit sans helmet on. But no, it was fully for its functionality.

Alec was torn between envy of the tech and annoyance at the obvious showing off.

"What is this?" He asked, refusing to just take the offered fluid.

"The same thing your friend drank before. She looks fine, so never fear."

His cat eyes were laughing at Alec and he didn't appreciate that. He grabbed the container out of the air but didn't drink yet.

"So what's the plan? Do you want to make a team to what? Investigate?"

The man regarded him more seriously. "At this point, there is little we can do _but_  gather information. We can't sow panic but we can't sit and twiddle our thumbs until there's sufficient reason to start preparing for war. At that point it'd be too late."

"So you do assume a war is in our future."

"Oh, without a doubt. However, I'm not seeing it the same way you are. You have finite years to live so if there _is_  a war, it could happen when you're seventy or even just after you've passed. _If_  we're unlucky, it might be coming sooner. That's why I want to start looking for information right now."

"Okay." Alec said.

"Okay?"

"Yes, let's do this."

Magnus's face lit up. "To Idris, then."

**


End file.
